He was very optimistic, was Mr. Pyecroft; and the founder of his family must have been a certain pagan gentleman by the name of Pan.

CHAPTER XIV

THE ATTIC ROOM

Mrs. De Peyster gave thanks when at last, toward one o’clock Jack and Mary and Judge Harvey went back to bed, leaving Matilda, Mr. Pyecroft, and herself.  It had previously been settled that Mr. Pyecroft was to have Jack’s old room, Matilda was, of course, to have her usual quarters, and Mrs. De Peyster was to have the room adjoining Matilda’s, that formerly was occupied by Mrs. De Peyster’s second maid.

“Say, that was certainly one close shave,” Mr. Pyecroft whispered at the door of her room.  “Perhaps we’d better beat it from here.  If that Judge ever places me!  And you, if those people ever get a fair look at your face, they’ll see your likeness to Mrs. De Peyster and they’ll guess what our game is—­sure!  You’ll promise to be careful?”

Mrs. De Peyster promised.

Fifteen minutes later, having been undressed by Matilda, she was lying in the dark on a narrow bed, hard, very hard, as hard as Mrs. Gilbert’s folding contrivance—­and once more, after this her second move, she was studying the items of her situation.

She had daily to mix with, strive to avoid, Jack and Mary.  And Jack had casually remarked that Judge Harvey would be frequently dropping in.

And there was that bland, incorrigible Pyecroft, whom she seemed to have become hopelessly tied to; Pyecroft, irresistibly insisting that she should swindle herself, and whom she saw no way of denying.

Suppose Pyecroft should find out?  He might.

Suppose Jack and Mary should find out?  They might.

Suppose Judge Harvey should find out?  He might.

And suppose all this business of her not going to Europe, but staying in her shuttered house—­her flight from home—­her humiliating experiences in an ordinary boarding-house where she passed as a housekeeper—­her being forced into a plan to rob herself—­suppose Mrs. Allistair should find out?  And Mrs. Allistair, she well knew, might somehow stumble upon all this; for she remembered how Mrs. Allistair had tried, and perhaps was still trying, to get some piquant bit of evidence against her in that Duke de Crecy affair.  And if Mrs. Allistair did find out—­

What a scandal!

And since her fate had become so inextricably tied up with the fates of others, and since the exposure of others might involve the exposure of her, there were yet further sources of danger.  For—­

There was that awful reporter watching the house, after Jack!

There were the police, after Pyecroft!

She shuddered.  This was only the seventh day since her inspired idea had been born within her.  And it was only that very day that she had landed at Cherbourg.  Three months must pass before Olivetta, in the role of Mrs. De Peyster, would return, and she could be herself again—­if they could ever, ever manage their expected re-exchange of personalities in this awful mess.